Strengthening policing through democratic governance

Dispatches

“Dispatches” is edited by student externs in the Democratic Policing seminar at NYU Law. The Policing Project does not endorse all the views expressed here: Dispatches is a forum for discussing the many aspects of democratic policing. We welcome submissions, ideas for interviews or conversations, and other content. Write us at submissions@policingproject.org

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Dispatches

Few controversies in policing are as fraught as the use of Terry stops—temporary detentions made by officers upon reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, often accompanied by protective pat-down searches known as “frisks.” Studies have shown that racial minorities are disproportionately targeted for Terry stops, raising concerns about [...] Read more

In late 2015, Jim Bueermann and I were discussing a concept that he called community-led policing. Jim, retired chief of the Redlands, CA Police Department and current president of the Police Foundation, is always two steps ahead of everyone else when it comes to [...] Read more

After the NYPD released its new body camera policy, fashioned with public input gathered by the Policing Project, a number of individuals and groups spoke out. They were pleased with the process but concerned that the NYPD did not follow public opinion more [...] Read more

The NYPD has released its new body camera policy, responding to public comments solicited through a process run by the Policing Project. The policy will apply to a 1,000-camera pilot project scheduled to begin later this spring. During the summer of 2016, the Policing Project reached [...] Read more

The Policing Project is conducting pilot projects in Tampa, Florida and Camden, New Jersey to foster police-youth relations. Based on the report of the Presidential Task Force on 21st Century Policing, the programs focus on bringing youth and police together to work collaboratively to solve an issue [...] Read more

In a strong editorial the LA Times praised the LA Police Commission – with whom the Policing Project is partnering – for seeking public input on the difficult question of whether and when to release body camera video after an officer involved shooting. On the [...] Read more

On Tuesday, March 21, Policing Project Deputy Director Maria Ponomarenko testified before the New York Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. She discussed the need for “front-end” democratic accountability around policing, and discussed the Policing Project’s efforts in this regard. She also emphasized the [...] Read more

Which policies should police departments adopt? On February 9 and 10, the Policing Project and the Police Foundation convened over twenty experts on policing practices and quantitative methods to explore one possible answer to this question: those policies whose benefits outweigh their costs. [...] Read more

Police departments around the country are increasingly using “bait” objects equipped with tracking devices to stop theft before it happens. The idea is simple: officers place a GPS tracker in an unattended car, laptop, or other object and wait for theft to occur. Once they are notified [...] Read more

The Los Angeles Police Commission has asked the Policing Project to run a community-wide engagement over one of the more complicated questions about body cameras: when to release footage after an officer-involved shooting.

Prompted in part by officer-involved shootings and other uses of force that captured [...] Read more

The Policing Project and the Brennan Center for Justice co-hosted “Policing and Accountability in the Digital Age” on September 15th, a conference that addresses the challenges and benefits of rapid advances in policing technologies. A cohort of academics, law enforcement leaders, activists, and journalists tackled difficult [...] Read more

In light of the deeply troubling events of the last couple of weeks—the shootings by police of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, and the shooting of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge—the country rightfully is preoccupied with how to discuss, and address, issues of policing and [...] Read more

The Policing Project is pleased to announce it has received a generous grant from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation for a two-year initiative to improve the application of cost-benefit analysis (CBA) to policing. This grant provides funding for efforts to advance the use of [...] Read more

This post is the second in a series regarding Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s community policing tour: a six-stop visit to jurisdictions that emulate the pillars of community policing presented in the final report of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing. You can find the [...] Read more

Starting today, the New York City Police Department invites individuals and organizations to share their views on its proposed body-worn camera policy by accessing a brief questionnaire and online comment portal at www.nypdbodycameras.org. The site will be accessible until midnight July 31, 2016.

As several high-profile incidents around the country have shown, many Americans are deeply dissatisfied with policing. Police departments are looking for ways to respond. Surveys based on the customer satisfaction model could play a key role in making sure those responses are informed and meaningful. Surveys [...] Read more

“Big data” technologies have the potential to revolutionize policing, but they also raise new questions about privacy, accuracy, and when trade-secret protection must give way to much-needed public accountability.

A case in point is the Fresno, California police department’s controversial, year-long test use of “Beware.” Produced [...] Read more

As the Obama Administration enters its final year in office, Attorney General Loretta Lynch is on a mission. Lynch has long understood the importance of strong police-community relations: less than a month after she was sworn in as Attorney General last year, she began a community policing [...] Read more

While other advocacy organizations and news outlets have compiled the 2016 presidential candidate’s views on criminal justice reform, I attempted to document what the candidates and their campaigns have said specifically about policing. Below you will find each candidate’s policing policy positions (if they have them), and [...] Read more

Amid the debates about law enforcement and urgent calls for reform, one police department is responding with a concrete, innovative strategy. This month, the Camden County Police Department in New Jersey (CCPD) is partnering with the Policing Project to make its community policing [...] Read more

Taxpayers pay a high price for police misconduct. Between 2010 and 2014, the ten cities with the largest police departments spent a total of $1.4 billion to resolve misconduct cases. The Chicago Police Department (CPD)—subject to a run of recent troubling stories involving [...] Read more

Recent reporting from the Epoch Timesraises doubts about the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) new community policing push. While it seems too soon to deem the community policing program a failure, the Epoch Times’ reporting does raise an important question: whether the [...] Read more

The Z Backscatter van, used by the New York Police Department for the past decade, is a powerful, mobile, paramilitary x-ray machine that literally sees through walls. It can detect people, explosives, drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, and even currency. Although these vans further important [...] Read more

Students in NYU Law’s Democratic Policing seminar recently had the opportunity to do something rare: try out their ideas for policing policies before panels of law-enforcement officials who bear the day-to-day responsibility of putting such ideas into action.

In its May 2015 report, the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing called on police departments to “establish a culture of transparency and accountability to build public trust and legitimacy.” Toward that end, the Task Force said that department policies—on everything from new policing [...] Read more

Over at the New York Times Room for Debate, experts discussed whether “predictive policing”—the use of data to target possible violent offenders before they act—works, and if it can be done without infringing on civil liberties. These are important discussions. Policymakers and police chiefs alike might [...] Read more

It’s easy to criticize. But often it is more important to highlight real change when it comes. Thus, this: the first in a “hats off” series on positive moves being taken to strengthen policing though democratic governance. Read more

“What should community policing look like, and how far are we from it?”
That’s the first question Tony Ganzer asks all his guests on Our Land, a new program on Cleveland’s public radio station that is intended to gain and share the perspectives of Cleveland community members on their interactions with the police. Read more

Call it the Ferguson Effect, call it the YouTube Effect—call it whatever you want, but some notable figures may have gotten a little ahead of themselves in claiming that police have become lax in their enforcement efforts due to public scrutiny, leading to more violent crimes. Not only is there no clear data to support the claim, but the available data suggest just the opposite. More than anything else, public debate over this issue highlights the stark need for more and better data on policing. Read more

We’re happy to greet you here, on the new website for the Policing Project. This site is the collective endeavor of a lot of people who believe that policing can be strengthened through the ordinary tools of democratic governance. Read more